Vālenz® Health Appoints Four Top Leaders from Healthcare Bluebook™ to Executive Team
Vālenz® Health announces that four top leaders from Healthcare Bluebook™ have joined its executive team after the company’s recent acquisition: Mike O’Neil, Bill Kampine, Erik Nicholson and Zack Samples.
O’Neil assumes the role of Chief Strategy Officer at Valenz after 12 years with Healthcare Bluebook, most recently as Chief Executive Officer. Dedicated to driving change in healthcare for more than two decades, O’Neil remains committed to protecting patients by exposing the truth and empowering choice. He works closely with employers, providers and patients to deliver outsized gains in healthcare savings, safety and service to patients and their employers.
A highly respected thought leader in healthcare cost and quality transparency, Kampine brings 25-plus years in new venture development, mergers and acquisitions, strategy, and advanced analytics to his role as Chief Innovation Officer at Valenz. He oversaw healthcare economics, innovation and strategic growth initiatives in the same position at Healthcare Bluebook, which he joined in 2008 as co-founder.
Nicholson becomes Chief Information Officer at Valenz, the same position he held at Healthcare Bluebook. With more than 25 years leading the development and implementation of strategic IT plans, he provides deep experience in building and developing cross-functional teams and overseeing operations for major business units. At Healthcare Bluebook, he spearheaded enterprise-level technology projects and standardized development and operational processes across the enterprise.
After serving as Healthcare Bluebook’s Chief Operating Officer for more than 15 years, Samples joins Valenz as Chief Transformation Officer. Leveraging his data-centric expertise in business operations for the healthcare industry, Samples led the development of the provider and pricing analytics for Healthcare Bluebook’s successful market launch, then led ongoing coordination of implementations, product delivery, data science, corporate planning and project management. Nicholson and Samples are both founding members of Healthcare Bluebook.
“Mike, Bill, Erik and Zack served as the driving force of an outstanding team that made Healthcare Bluebook the industry’s leading healthcare cost and quality navigation platform. We are thrilled to now have them officially join Valenz executive leadership,” said Rob Gelb, Chief Executive Officer. “Leveraging the collective expertise, background and innovative spirit of this group, Valenz only grows stronger as the market’s most powerful offering for optimizing the utilization of high-value healthcare.”
Valenz acquired Healthcare Bluebook in July 2024, bringing together the companies’ complementary services as a one-of-a-kind member engagement and digital “front door” experience and payment integrity data platform. Providing full transparency through America’s largest cost and quality data set, Valenz ensures unprecedented access to highly comprehensive data for improved provider selection and healthcare decision making.
“The strength of the Valenz team is central to our tremendous momentum, as together we skate to where the puck is going – empowering ourselves to address the unmet needs of the industry, solve for the challenges ahead and turn them into market-moving change,” Gelb said.
Learn more about the Valenz executive team by visiting valenzhealth.com/about/leadership/.
About Vālenz® Health
Vālenz® Health is the platform to simplify healthcare – the destination for employers, payers, providers and members to reduce costs, improve quality, and elevate the healthcare experience. The Valenz mindset and culture of innovation combine to create a distinctly different approach to an inefficient, uninspired health system. With fully integrated solutions, Valenz engages early and often to execute across the entire patient journey – from care navigation and management to payment integrity, plan performance and provider verification. With a 99% client retention rate, we elevate expectations to a new level of efficiency, effectiveness and transparency where smarter, better, faster healthcare is possible. For more information, visit valenzhealth.com